Peanut Butter Smell Test for Alzheimer’s
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An ingenious group of researchers at the University of Florida discovered all we may need is some peanut butter and a ruler.
Considering that the left side of the brain primarily processes what we smell through our left nostril and the right side of our brain covers the right nostril and Alzheimer’s strikes the left side more than the right, what if you performed the following experiment?
Close your eyes and mouth and breathe normally through the nose. Then close one nostril and hold a foot-long ruler out from the open nostril. After their eyes, mouth, and one nostril were closed, the container of peanut butter was opened at the bottom of the ruler and moved closer 1 cm upon each exhale until the person indicated that they detected the odor. Then they repeated the whole procedure again using the other nostril.
In the normal elderly controls, they smelled the peanut butter as soon as it came within an average of 18 centimeters, which is about 7 inches from either nostril. And in the right nostril of Alzheimer’s patients was about the same, 7 inches. No difference, but in their left nostril, only 2 inches. The peanut butter had to get all the way up to 2 inches before they could detect it through their left nostril. And this happened every single time, left nostril impairment of odor detection was present in all the patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease.
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You can bet I’ll be testing myself with peanut butter.
Amazing that these folks came up with a cheap and easy way to dispositively test for the disease.
Truly inspirational.
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Reinke Faces Life 
No idea. You don’t taste of consume it. So you MIGHT be OK. But I’d talk to your doctor. Seems like a cheap easy test that should be part of an annual check up?
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This is one for the books. I would try it but I have a bad reaction to peanut butter. Does it work with other smells. The smell of success would be interesting.
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